


The Flight of the Sparrow

by emei



Category: Non je ne regrette rien - Edith Piaf (Song)
Genre: F/F, Lesbians in Space, Secrets, Space Pirates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-02-28 09:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2727962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emei/pseuds/emei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why be retired when you can be a space pirate for hire instead? No regrets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Flight of the Sparrow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angharad_crewe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angharad_crewe/gifts).



> Thanks for all your wonderful prompts, angharad_crewe! I do hope you enjoy your Yuletide gift.
> 
> The name Mômone is a nickname shamelessly borrowed from Edith Piaf's closest friend and companion - in their youth they performed together on the streets and lived together.

The best thing about old-fashioned paper, Edie decided, is that it takes so well to fire. She shuffled backwards just enough that the flames didn’t lick at her boots, and watched them leap as the bundle crackled and turned black and crumbled.

It’s not like these used to be the only copies – simply the most ceremonious ones, backed up by layers and layers of digital documentation – but burning them felt suitably symbolic: an end to the old life, up in flames, an offering to the new. (And for all she knew all the digital records might be gone by now, too. As if she never existed at all. There were some who would find that suitable punishment, some who would find it expedient. She didn’t care which, it suited her to be cut loose and have the past swept away. A blank slate.)

The little fire died down. Edie straightened up, brushed her hands against her knees. This really was only for the last bit of symbolism anyway: she’d dumped her first transport at a junkyard on an outer-rim planet and thrown her old uniforms into the incinerator at another. If someone came looking that should keep them going confused for a while at the least.

\--

She picked Mômone up in a bohemian bar on the outskirts of a market, a few planet jumps later.

The bar was full of obnoxious, overconfident traders who looked like they were annoying the regular patrons who just wanted a mellow evening of hallucinatory soft drinks. In a corner a slight woman in well-worn fatigues was fleecing five of the meanest-looking traders all at once; she played a mean card game. Edie was impressed despite herself.

Edie’s next job could do with a second pair of hands. Especially hands as nimble as those, cards flipping almost too fast to see between her fingers as she shuffled the deck again. The woman looked up, tossing her head to get her mass of dark curls out of her eyes and caught Edie watching her across the bar. She slammed the deck of cards down on the table, declared the game finished and ignored the angry muttering that rose in her wake as she strode over to Edie.

She took Edie’s drink out of her hand, put it down somewhere, and said, “You really shouldn’t be having that. Only drinkable thing around here is the hallu’soft, and you don’t look the type for that kind of tripping”. When Edie didn’t shift, she continued, “I’m Mo”.

“Edie. You want to get the hell out of here before they catch on to how you ripped them off?”

Mo’s grin was blinding.

In hindsight, perhaps it was Mo who picked Edie up in that bar. Hindsight is kind of a bitch.

\--

The first job Edie and Mo ran together went off without a hitch, apart from their having to leave in rather a hurry. But the ship was full up on fuel and the local governor’s ill-gotten fortune distributed among the district's working kids, and when Edie pushed the ship full-throttle to blaze out of local atmosphere, Mo’s grin was so blindingly bright that Edie was inclined to count the hurry as a win, too.

Edie’s ship was kind of tiny. Her main criteria when getting it had been that it should be hard to trace and easy to handle for a single pilot. Abundant sleeping space and comfort, not so much. She was used to having her personal comfort pretty far down on the list of priorities anyway (somewhere far below diplomacy, stateliness, and appearances), and Mo seemed used to making do. They took turns piloting and sleeping since there was only the one bunk.

\--

Takedowns of corrupt politicians and businessmen were Edie’s favourite kind of job. She wouldn’t even take payment for it, most of the time. Mo did insist that one couldn’t live out of righteousness alone though, so she set them up with a sideline in daring rescues that occasionally turned out to be very profitable indeed. (Playing the hero also made her look quite dashing, Edie thought. It was nice to see the grateful families go all starry-eyed over Mo, let her accept their thankful offerings, and then get to sweep her off towards the stars again.)

\--

Mo was in the pilot’s chair, idly tapping at the controls while waiting for an answer to come in on their offer to track down a missing senator’s daughter.

Edie, leaning on the back of the chair, thought that the job was a cakewalk and said so. She was fairly sure the girl in question was hiding out in a friend’s cabin by a lake and thoroughly disinclined to return to the family home and her father’s smothering attention, but there was likely to be a reward to be wrung out from assuring said father of her continued well-being, too.

“Smothering attention, hmm? Was that why you ran away, too? You’ve never said,” Mo said.

“What?”

“Oh come now, don’t play coy, your majesty.” Mo’s voice was light and teasing, and Edie didn’t realize that she was moving until her back slammed against the cabin wall hard enough to take her breath away.

Mo started upright and stared at her.

“Did you really think I hadn’t recognized you? Your picture was plastered all over the rebellion broadcasts for years. I grew up seeing your face on the vids every single day.”

“Most people never looked beyond the uniform,” Edie replied faintly. “Or the mask.” Her palms were clammy against the wall.

“Well,” Mo said with her most impish grin returning, “I suppose most people didn’t spend years imaging getting to peel you out of your uniform piece by piece. Or learning exactly how your lips looked below that mask. They’re very recognizable, you know.”

And then the comm chimed with an incoming message and they had to go prove that the senator’s daughter had in fact run off with her childhood sweetheart of her own free will and not been the slightest bit kidnapped.

As rescue missions go, it was not particularly hazardous. Luckily so, because Edie was severely distracted. The senator’s daughter caught the sidelong glances at Mo she couldn’t help stealing, winked at her and said that running away together was a course of action that came highly recommended.

Once the mission was completed and they were safely back on the Sparrow, Mo would not be deterred from the conversation for long. Of course she had been one of the children of the revolution too, sweet little Mômone who had the run of the station, the secret messages hidden up her sleeves going undetected by force of her charming smile. Crawled through air ducts and lived of scraps and hidden from guards, all for the revolution and its princess. And the child Mômone had grown into Mo, sharper around the edges and a little less fervent, but she never did stop wondering what happened to the beloved face of the rebellion.

Edie hummed and let her fingers run along Mo’s cheekbones, imagined her slipping through backstreets and echoing corridors with a patrol on her heels, remembering how ruthless they would have been. But being the poster child for a revolution was never the best of jobs, either. Especially not when you were no longer a child, and not cut out to be cardboard.

“After the revolution they wanted a figurehead, not a queen. I understand that, I suppose. The desire to make one’s own decisions.”

“And so you ran away. In the little spaceship Sparrow, all alone across the universe, out set Her Imperial Majesty the Crown Princess and Regent E-“

“Oh hush. It’s Edie. Just Edie.”

“So many names, and that’s the only one you want?” Mo’s brows were drawn together in a small frown. Edie reached up to smooth it out with her thumb.

“They’re all just tongue-twisters at this point. Long strings of history best forgotten, over and done with. Besides, Edie fits this life much better. Edie and Mo in the good ship Sparrow, pirates for hire. Has a ring to it, don’t you think?”

Mo did think. Mo did also think that this was enough talking, if Edie wasn’t up for lingering on the past. Less talking, more kissing.

Also, the good ship Sparrow had an autopilot. There was really no need to take turns in that inviting bunk right over there.


End file.
